Technology

37800 readers

460 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

126

The British government is transferring sovereignty of an island in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius next week, potentially impacting the existence of the .io domain. (every.to)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Unfortunately the IANA decided to kill the TLD altogether, but the Chagos islanders have been asking to get control of it themselves so they can receive the registration fees. This was sort of the worst of both worlds: they could have given the Chagos islands it's own TLD, or given control of .io to the Chagos islanders, but instead they just said, "you're not sovereign, so you get nothing".

edit: I'm reading elsewhere that it's not yet decided for sure whether to kill the TLD, but no one seems to think it will be given to the Chagossians, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I don’t get why they killed it. some regional areas have their own TLD. .cat for Catalonia, for example.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Two letters TLD like .io are ISO country codes. Catalonia's .cat is a generic TLD in comparison. Since .io stands for the British Indian Ocean Territory and Chagos Island isn't going to be 'separate' anymore by becoming part of Mauritius, IANA's logic is that the ccTLD has to be retired. That .su is still around after the collapse of USSR isn't a valid argument for them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

ok. I was not aware the two letter TLD were more restricted than the others. thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Technically, they haven't yet. In the past they've sometimes transitioned ownership of country-code TLDs over (like the Soviet Union's .su to Russia). I think they just don't want to wade into the debate over the Chagos Islands in general.